Amazing Medical Miracles

Lakshmi Tatma now looks like a normal girl living in a small village in India, but the struggles she has faced in her two years of life have made her a medical miracle.

When Lakshmi was born, she had four arms and four legs. Her extra limbs actually belonged to her parasitic twin, a sibling born without a head and attached to Lakshmi at the pelvis.
The parasitic twin caused Lakshmi to become malnourished. Doctors said that without an operation to separate them, Lakshmi would not live to adulthood. "That body was living on her and making her sick," Dr. Oz says. "You get prone to the kinds of infections that ultimately cost you your life."
In November 2007, about 36 doctors and medical staff worked for 27 hours to remove Lakshmi's twin. They separated the two spines, removed the parasitic twin's kidney and transplanted it into Lakshmi. The pelvis was split apart and reconstructed so it could support Lakshmi's organs. Finally, doctors removed the extra arms and legs.

Three months after the groundbreaking surgery, Dr. Oz spoke with Lakshmi's doctors to get an update on her recovery. "She's very lucky because all of her key organs were inside of her, with the exception of an extra kidney she needed to take from the parasitic twin," Dr. Oz says.
The doctors told Dr. Oz they still need to fix Lakshmi's club feet and perform orthopedic procedures to fix her hip. "She's actually starting to stand. If she can do that, one day she'll probably walk," Dr. Oz says. "It's pretty impressive. She'll probably even be able to have kids, which is really remarkable, a testament to the great job they did."
Lakshmi's surgery took an incredibly coordinated effort by medical professionals with different specialties. "Medical teams don't always play well together," Dr. Oz says. "Orthopedic people, people who are good at intestines, people who are good at kidneys, people who are good at the spine-they all had to work together."